How Gulf-developed large language models like Jais are bringing Arabic into the AI mainstream

As Gulf states aim to become AI leaders by investing in R&D and startups (Supplied/MBZUAI)
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Updated 09 October 2023
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How Gulf-developed large language models like Jais are bringing Arabic into the AI mainstream

  • ChatGPT understands inquiries in Arabic, but answers can sound unnatural or fail to convey the right message
  • Now homegrown LLMs can capture linguistic nuances and even comprehend dialects and cultural references

DUBAI: When ChatGPT made its debut last year, the artificial intelligence program caused a global sensation, as users found themselves communicating with a machine that could pass as another human being.

However, the enthusiasm among techies in the Arab world was somewhat diminished by ChatGPT’s limited grasp of Arabic, in part the result of the language’s complexity, diacritical markings, inflection system and regional dialects.

Although ChatGPT, which is based on a large language model, or LLM, can understand inquiries in Arabic and is able to translate, especially when using Modern Standard Arabic, answers can come across as unnatural, while literal translations do not always convey the right message.

That is why Jais, an LLM designed to support Arabic, was unveiled in July, bringing one of the world’s most widely spoken, though occasionally overlooked, languages into the AI mainstream.

Jais, a name that recalls the UAE’s highest peak in Ras Al-Khaimah, is the brainchild of a team of academics and engineers who embarked on the project because they felt too few LLMs were credibly multilingual.




The Ameca humanoid robot greets visitors at Dubai's Museum of the Future. (AFP)

Downloadable on the machine learning platform Hugging Face, Jais is the result of a collaboration between Cerebras Systems, Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, or MBZUAI, and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi-based G42 called Inception.

“It is vital that large language models are developed for languages other than English to ensure that innovation is accessible to everyone,” Andy Jackson, CEO of Inception, told Arab News.

“A quality Arabic LLM is critical for all sectors, businesses and organizations, as well as individuals. Innovation thrives when we collaborate, and Jais sets a new standard for AI advancement in the Middle East, ensuring that the Arabic language, with its depth and heritage, finds its voice within the AI landscape.

“Jais demonstrates our commitment to excellence, and our dedication to democratizing AI and promoting innovation.”

LLMs are functional machine learning models that use deep learning algorithms to process and understand natural human language. These models are then trained on large amounts of text data to learn patterns in the language.

These programs, which are rapidly proliferating in the wake of ChatGPT’s success, are capable of generating text on a seemingly endless array of subjects, producing everything from academic papers to poetry.

What is especially impressive about them is their ability to create responses to questions that are so convincingly human-like in almost any language, including coding.

But in order to make those languages sound convincing, native-speaking human programmers are often required to provide a critical layer of context and understanding that can enhance accuracy and reliability.

“Jais is purpose-built for the Arabic language and excels in capturing its intricacies and nuances, ensuring highly accurate and contextually relevant responses — a distinct advantage over general-purpose models,” said Jackson.




AI programs that are responsive to the Arabic language could widen access to a transformational new technology. (MBZUAI)

“This specialization is a pivotal development, opening up opportunities for governments, industries, and individuals across the Arab world to tap into the potential of generative AI.”

Currently considered among the foremost Arabic LLMs, Jais, a 13-billion parameter model, was trained on a newly developed 395-billion-token Arabic and English dataset on Condor Galaxy, one of the largest cloud AI supercomputers in the world, launched by G42 and Cerebras in July using 116 billion Arabic tokens and 279 billion English tokens.

“Jais was born in Abu Dhabi and offers more than 400 million Arabic speakers the opportunity to harness the potential of generative AI,” Preslav Nakov, professor and deputy department chair of Natural Language Processing at MBZUAI, told Arab News.

“It will facilitate and expedite innovation, highlighting Abu Dhabi’s leading position as a hub for AI, innovation, culture preservation and international collaboration.”

As an open-source model, Jais is expected to engage scientists, academics and developers to accelerate the growth of a an Arabic language AI ecosystem. It could also serve as a model for other languages now underrepresented in mainstream AI.

FASTFACTS

• Large language models, or LLMs, are a type of AI that can mimic human intelligence.

• Arabic is spoken by 400m people, but accounts for 1 percent of total global online content.

• Jais was created by Cerebras, MBZUAI, and a subsidiary of G42 called Inception.

“Jais outperforms existing Arabic models by a sizable margin,” said Nakov. “It is also competitive with English models of similar size despite being trained on significantly less English data.

“This exciting result shows that the model’s English component learned from the Arabic data and vice versa, opening a new era in LLM development and training.”

In Jais’s development, significant attention was devoted to pre-processing Arabic text, enhancing support for the language’s unique features, including its writing style and word order.

Jais also maintains a balanced Arabic-English dataset focus for optimal performance, offering a marked improvement over models with a limited Arabic text presence.

Its developers say Jais, unlike other models, captures linguistic nuances and even comprehends various Arabic dialects and cultural references.

“Jais facilitates faster customization for specific Arabic-focused use cases and addresses data ownership concerns by being based in the UAE, offering a reassuring solution for local enterprises,” said Inception CEO Jackson.




LLMs are functional machine learning models that use deep learning algorithms to process and understand natural human language. (Supplied)

The UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology, Abu Dhabi’s National Oil Company and Department of Health, Etihad Airways, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and global technology group e& are planning to utilize Jais, offering valuable insights to enhance the model and its applications across their industries.

Given the strong digital transformation efforts by several of the Arab Gulf governments, accompanied by huge investments in high-tech industries and homegrown tech startups, AI programs that are responsive to the Arabic language could widen access to a transformational new technology and challenge the monopoly of a clutch of Silicon Valley companies.

Last month, Technology Innovation Institute, an Emirati research center in Abu Dhabi, released Falcon 180b, an open-source AI model. Established in 2020, TII released Falcon 40b, the first version of its flagship open-source AI model, in May this year, after unveiling Noor, an Arabic-based AI model, last year.

According to a report in The Economist magazine, TII is the applied-research arm of the Advanced Technology Research Council, a government agency that employs an 800-strong multinational staff working on subjects from biotechnology and robotics to quantum computing.

“We are entering the game to disrupt the core players,” Faisal Al-Bannai, secretary-general of the ATRC, told The Economist, adding that TII will build new proprietary models and applications catering for specific fields such as medicine and law.

For its part, Saudi Arabia launched its National Strategy for Data and Artificial Intelligence in October 2020, aiming to become a global leader in the field as it seeks to attract $20 billion in foreign and local investments by 2030.

The Kingdom is also determined to future-proof its workforce, initially by training and developing a pool of 20,000 AI and data specialists. In May this year, Deloitte’s AI Institute was officially launched at the Experience Analytics conference in Riyadh.

Just last week Saudi Arabia launched a National Olympiad for Programming and Artificial Intelligence open to all middle- and high-school pupils. An estimated 300,000 students will be selected from 3 million participants for training in programming and AI, according to media reports.




The hope is that the advent of AI and the automation of rapid translation will be a game changer for Arabic content. (LEAP)

The initiative is a collaboration between the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and King Abdulaziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba).

Saudi Arabia’s adoption of digitalization and emerging technologies is forecast to contribute about 2.4 percent to its gross domestic product by 2030, according to a recent report by global consultancy firm PwC.

In terms of average annual growth in the contribution of AI by region, Saudi Arabia is expected to grab a 31.3 percent share in the technology’s expansion between 2018 and 2030, the PwC report added.

“AI is developing rapidly, and its impact will be felt more and more across all sectors and areas of life,” said MBZUAI’s Nakov. “In this context, it is vital that the Arab world has access to an advanced LLM that can be adapted and utilized across all sectors.

“The rapid advancement of AI means that organizations that fail to adapt and start using AI sooner rather than later will be left behind, which makes it even more essential for the Arab world to have access to quality LLMs.”

Beyond its business applications, however, a crucial aspect of a program such as Jais is its ability to champion neglected languages, preserve them in a fast-changing economy, and promote digital inclusivity.

Although Arabic is an official language in 22 countries and is partly spoken in 11 others, it accounts for just 1 percent of total global online content, according to Jais’s creators. The hope is that the advent of AI and the automation of rapid translation will be a game changer.

By placing the language at the forefront of the AI revolution, Jais and its successors could help to maintain Arabic’s global prominence and its distinctive cultural significance in the digital age.


Abbas risks Palestinian backlash over overhaul of prisoner payments

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Abbas risks Palestinian backlash over overhaul of prisoner payments

RAMALLAH: President Mahmoud Abbas faced criticism from allies and foes alike on Tuesday over a decree overhauling payments to families of Palestinians killed or jailed by Israel, a move to satisfy a US demand that will likely deepen his unpopularity.
Palestinian Authority leader Abbas, 89, issued the decree on Monday overturning the system, long condemned by critics as rewarding attacks on Israel but viewed among Palestinians as a vital source of welfare for detainees’ families.
The sudden announcement seems aimed at removing a potential source of tension with US President Donald Trump and an attempt to preserve the PA’s role as Washington bolsters its pro-Israeli approach to the conflict, Palestinian analysts said.
“The goal is to try to open a good page with Trump at a time when Trump has completely turned his back on the Palestinians by calling for displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza, said Hani Al-Masri, a Palestinian political analyst in Ramallah.
Scrapping the system of salary-type payments, dubbed “pay for slay” by critics — a label rejected by Palestinians — has been a major demand of successive US administrations. Abbas had long resisted pressure to halt the program.
The PA will instead provide support to families of prisoners via a social welfare network, according to need rather than their length of imprisonment. Qadura Fares, the Palestinian official responsible for prisoner affairs, said between 35,000 and 40,000 families would be affected.
Fares, a member of Abbas’ Fatah Movement, told a news conference “a fireball” had been thrown in Abbas’ lap, underlining the huge sensitivities of ending a system introduced under the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the 1990s.
Hamas condemns move
Beneficiaries have included families in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and Palestinians living in Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere — as well as those considered for release under the phased Gaza war ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed the change as a ruse, saying payments would continue through other channels.
Masri said the public reaction would depend on how the move was implemented, saying that if payments to prisoners were totally scrapped, “it will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
“This decision weakens the legitimacy and popularity of the president, which is already weak,” he added.
Palestinian opinion polls consistently show Abbas to be unpopular among Palestinians.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas condemned the decree saying it amounted to abandoning the cause “of the prisoners, the wounded, and the families of the martyrs” at a “critical juncture in the history of our Palestinian cause.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, established under interim peace accords with Israel three decades ago, exercises limited self rule over patches of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The salaries and services it provides helped keep Abbas and his Fatah faction politically relevant in the face of expanding Israeli settlements and the political challenge posed by Hamas, which seized Gaza from Abbas’ control in 2007.
The decision comes as the PA faces mounting financial pressure from a slowdown in aid, a squeeze on a system of tax revenue transfers by Israel and a slump in contributions from Palestinians who have been shut out of the Israeli labor market by the war in Gaza.
Israel has been deducting the payments made by the authority from taxes collected on its behalf from goods that cross its territory to Palestinian areas.
The PA has appealed for more aid from Arab and European states to make up for the shortfall of billions of shekels but has so far struggled to make headway.

UAE president meets Pakistani PM ahead of World Governments Summit

Updated 3 min 32 sec ago
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UAE president meets Pakistani PM ahead of World Governments Summit

  • Leaders discuss cooperation on trade, need for peace between Israel, Palestine
  • Dubai hosting 3-day meeting of global leaders, innovators

LONDON: UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan welcomed Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday ahead of the World Governments Summit.

During their talks, at Qasr Al-Shati in Abu Dhabi, the two leaders discussed ways to deepen cooperation and enhance ties between their countries in the economic, trade and development fields, the Emirates News Agency reported.

The meeting highlighted the summit’s role in identifying global governance trends and preparing governments to deal with global changes, the report said.

Al-Nahyan and Sharif also discussed regional and international issues, emphasizing the importance of lasting peace between Israel and Palestine through a two-state solution to ensure security and stability in the region.

Sharif reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to strengthening its relationship with the UAE and enhancing cooperation.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and his representative in the Al-Dhafra region, Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, also attended the meeting, along with other ministers and senior officials.


GCC ready for economy of ideas era, ministers tell summit

Updated 8 min 8 sec ago
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GCC ready for economy of ideas era, ministers tell summit

  • Saudi Economy Minister Faisal Alibrahim said that collaboration is essential among GCC member states and should not be seen as a weakness

DUBAI: Gulf Cooperation Council countries are taking substantial steps to diversify their economies based on a model of the economy of ideas, the World Governments Summit was told on Tuesday.

Multiple schemes and visions have been launched within the GCC, reflecting the region’s commitment to long-term economic diversification beyond the energy sector, economic ministers from the bloc said.

At the World Governments Summit 2025 annual meeting in Dubai, Saudi Economy Minister Faisal Alibrahim said that collaboration is essential among GCC member states and should not be seen as a weakness, but an opportunity.

“Economies such as logistics, healthcare and the new health tech, there’s agriculture, there’s agricultural tech, financial stocks and funds globally,” he added.

“It is important to recognize that GCC countries share common opportunities and challenges, so collaboration is key on both the regional and global levels. Integration should not be seen as a compromise, but a potential big opportunity on integration, on infrastructure and logistics policies,” said Albrahim.

Bahrain’s minister of finance and national economy, Salman Al-Khalifa, said: “Diversification means the need to reinvest, reinvent and lower our dependence on oil, nurture emerging sectors, but also to build new economic fields.”

Economic diversification has made the GCC resilient and boosted economic development, he added, highlighting that Saudi Arabia has made huge strides in that regard.

“Non-oil sectors made up 83 percent of Bahrain’s gross domestic product, and Bahrain is already investing in the future economy of human capital, technology and building a strong infrastructure for that, such as the first worldwide Data Sovereignty Law,” Al-Khalifa said.

“We are seeing great progress in non-oil sectors in the GCC; non-oil sectors now makes up 50 percent of the economy,” he added.

In the UAE, non-oil sectors now make up 74 percent of the economy and in Saudi Arabia, the figure stands at 70 percent, Al-Khalifa said.

The speakers highlighted the GCC’s falling reliance on oil and gas revenues by investing in renewable energy, technology and knowledge-based industries.

Discussions highlighted the need for sustainable economic policies that balance development with the preservation of natural resources for future generations.

GCC Secretary-General Jasem Al-Budaiwi said that the economy was a topic of discussion for everyone but the world was looking to the GCC for guidance.

“The world discovered a truth: We (the GCC) are, in fact, an economic entity. We are credible, we follow up on our word and as the GCC the world is listening to what we say, and following what we do,” he said.

Human capital is at the core of developing a sustainable economy in the GCC, Al-Khalifa said.

“First is the human capital. There is a need to make sure that the human capital we have in the GCC region is the finest human capital in global standards,” he added.

“The GCC has the most developed infrastructure, from the data center to telecom and cloud internet, and regulations are well suited for the economic transition from industrialized economies to an economy of ideas.

“There are many other examples, whether it is in fintech, whether it’s in logistics, whether it’s in technology, where governments can make a difference by exhausting the right set of regulations. So, those are the three things that we need to make sure that we’re always focused,” Al-Khalifa said.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said that deepening regional economic integration and pooling resources together makes the GCC more powerful and creates healthy competition in the region.

“Trade among GCC countries grew rapidly; good exports tripled in the last decade to $70 million,” she added.


Ceasefire is only way to bring Israeli hostages home, Hamas official says

A drone view shows Palestinian Hamas militants parading on the day some hostages held in Gaza were released as part of ceasefire
Updated 4 min 32 sec ago
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Ceasefire is only way to bring Israeli hostages home, Hamas official says

  • Trump said on Monday that Hamas should release all the hostages held by the group by midday on Saturday or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire

CAIRO: A Hamas official said on Tuesday Israeli hostages can be brought home from Gaza only if a fragile ceasefire is respected, dismissing the “language of threats” after US President Donald Trump said he would “let hell break out” if they were not freed.
Hamas has begun releasing some hostages gradually but postponed freeing any more until further notice, accusing Israel of violating the terms with several deadly shootings as well as hold-ups of some aid deliveries in Gaza. Israel denies holding back aid supplies and says it has fired on people who disregard warnings not to approach Israeli troop positions.
Trump, a close ally of Israel, said on Monday that Hamas should release all the hostages held by the Palestinian militant group by midday on Saturday or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, which took effect on January 19.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel remained determined to get all the hostages back.
“We will continue to take determined and ruthless action until we return all of our hostages — the living and the deceased,” he said in a statement mourning Israeli Shlomo Mansour after the military confirmed he was killed during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, that triggered the Gaza war.
Ahon Ohel, an Israeli still held hostage in Gaza nearly 500 days after gunmen seized him from a roadside bomb shelter in southern Israel, managed to get a message out from the Gaza tunnel where he was in captivity.
He sent a birthday wish for his sister via two other hostages who had been held with him and were freed on Saturday, his mother Idit Ohel said.
“Alon has been in the tunnels all this time,” Ohel told Reuters in an interview. “(He) hasn’t seen sunlight, doesn’t know the difference between day and night, has gotten little food — about one (piece of) bread a day.”
Trump has enraged Palestinians and Arab leaders and upended decades of US policy that endorsed a possible two-state solution in the region by trying to impose his vision of Gaza, which has been devastated by an Israeli military offensive and is short of food, water and shelter, and in need of foreign aid.
“Trump must remember there is an agreement that must be respected by both parties, and this is the only way to bring back the (Israeli) prisoners. The language of threats has no value and only complicates matters,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Trump has said the United States should take over Gaza — where many homes have been reduced to piles of cement, dust and twisted metal after 15 months of war — and move out its more than 2 million residents so that the Palestinian enclave can be turned into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Trump was to meet Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday for what is likely to be a tense encounter over the president’s Gaza redevelopment idea, including a threat to cut aid to the US-allied Arab country if it refuses to resettle Palestinians.
The forcible displacement of a population under military occupation is a war crime banned by the 1949 Geneva conventions.
Palestinians fear a repeat of what they call the Nakba, or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven out during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation. Israel denies they were forced out.
“We have to issue an ultimatum to Hamas. Cut off electricity and water, stop humanitarian aid. To open the gates of hell,” far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a conference of the Institute for Ultra-Orthodox Strategy and Policy.
UN chief warns of “immense tragedy”
The Gaza war has been paused since January 19 under the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that was brokered by Qatar and Egypt with support from the United States.
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, the Gaza health ministry says, and nearly all of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been internally displaced by the conflict, which has caused a hunger crisis.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities and about 250 were taken to Gaza as hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Trump’s ideas, which include a threat to cut aid to Egypt if it does not take in Palestinians, have introduced new complexity into a sensitive and explosive Middle East dynamic, including the shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
For Jordan, Trump’s talk of resettling some 2 million Gazans comes dangerously close to its nightmare of a mass expulsion of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, echoing a vision of Jordan as an alternative Palestinian home that has long been propagated by ultra-nationalist Israelis.
Amman’s concern is being amplified by a surge in violence on its border with the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Palestinian hopes of statehood are being rapidly eroded by expanding Jewish settlement.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on X on Tuesday that a resumption of armed conflict should be avoided at all costs because that would lead to “immense tragedy.”
“I appeal to Hamas to proceed with the planned liberation of hostages. Both sides must fully abide by their commitments in the ceasefire agreement and resume serious negotiations.”
The idea of a Palestinian state and Israel coexisting in peace has faded since 2014 when Palestinian and Israeli attempts at peacemaking in one of the most volatile and violent regions of the world stalled.


IMF committed to financing MENA countries needing support with $33 billion funding

Updated 42 min 50 sec ago
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IMF committed to financing MENA countries needing support with $33 billion funding

  • IMF commits $33 billion support to MENA countries most in need

DUBAI: The International Monetary Fund remains committed to helping countries that need support in the MENA region with financing of $33 billion, IMF’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told the World Government Summit on Tuesday.

“Today the IMF is supporting over 50 vulnerable countries, half of them are in sub-Saharan Africa … more important is we help countries build the foundations to get on a better part,” Georgieva told the WGS during a session with Richard Quest, CNN correspondent and anchor.

“By the way, in this region, $33 billion, IMF is financing for countries that need that support,” she said.

When asked by Quest if she was concerned that inflation was going to resurge, the IMF’s top official said that there was a need to see how things evolved.

“If we are in a situation where in some parts of the world there is a slowdown that may push central banks to bring interest rates down, that actually may not be inflationary … there are many things that we don’t know, but what we do know is that we have a situation in which the US economy has been performing quite strongly and will likely continue to be strong and that pushes the dollar up,” Georgieva explained.

Addressing a packed hall during WGS’s first day, the IMF chief added that the US had outperformed the rest of the G20 members; the only economy to exceed its pre-pandemic trend.

“What does that mean? Capital is moving much more forcefully toward the US … before the pandemic many on the move went to many places, 18 percent went to the United States and today it is over 30 percent.

“So that is the foundation for a strong dollar, and a strong dollar all other things are equal for the majority of emerging markets and developing economies is trouble … so then we have inflationary impact,” she said.

The IMF sees a picture of a “remarkably resilient world economy despite a series of unprecedented shocks,” Georgieva said, elaborating that “we are projecting growth this year 3.3 percent and next year 3.3 percent.”

The Gulf countries were doing quite well, she said, but expressed more concern about “Europe, and some ... (places) are vulnerable emerging markets where they are doing less well.”

Another concern highlighted was “how the tremendous transformations that are happening in the world are integrated in countries’ policies.”

Taking AI as a case in point, Quest asked: “Do you see us having a good handle on the growth of new technologies?”

“So, we look at the front, what is happening with artificial intelligence? It can be a great story, a world that becomes more productive, or it can be a sad story, a world that is more divided … the haves have more, and the have-nots are completely lost.

“What we assess is that AI is already like a tsunami hitting the labor market in advanced economies … 60 percent of jobs over the next period of time will either enhance and become more productive, or transformed or eliminated,” she said. 

Georgieva added that there was a need to recognize that “we are in a multipolar world” so cooperation as it used to be “before when we had a world with one country dominating” was going to be different.

“We still have one economy that is the strongest (the US) but we also have many economies, emerging market economies that are moving forward much faster, usually because of the 3 Ds; deregulate, digitize and diversify. These islands of excellence need to connect more, and we at the IMF are actually promoting more inter-region and cross-region collaboration. I think it is a moment to recognize our host (the UAE) because they are absolutely fantastic in working with everybody,” she said.